Re: RPI Hockey 2019 - 2020: Nordic Combined
I agree. I don't have a problem with the current scheduling, but Seth deserves credit for pulling those schedules together as it stoked interest when high ranked marquee teams came into town. I would guess Seth's scheduling was partly a recruiting tool (giving players looking at bigger teams the option to still play big teams at RPI) and partly an NCAA playoff strategy (the theory being that stealing a win against a top ranked team can be huge in the pairwise, while the downside of losing is lower). Look at the 2010-11 season. Beating #7 BU and #1 Yale got RPI into the NCAA playoffs despite mixed results in the ECAC schedule and a collapse at home in the playoffs. That didn't quite work out a few years later when RPI just missed out in '16 after beating #1 BC, despite being just 1 game over .500 in the ECAC.
But I think the real challenge is that RPI has been a middling to poor ECAC team for almost 10 years now, which is very hard to overcome regardless of who they play out of the conference. The flip side of that for this year is that there have been some decent ECAC performances so far, and plenty of opportunities for more in the coming weeks. Better defensive focus is crucial, and the power play needs a strategic re-think.
Originally posted by Ralph Baer
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But I think the real challenge is that RPI has been a middling to poor ECAC team for almost 10 years now, which is very hard to overcome regardless of who they play out of the conference. The flip side of that for this year is that there have been some decent ECAC performances so far, and plenty of opportunities for more in the coming weeks. Better defensive focus is crucial, and the power play needs a strategic re-think.
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